Everything Wrong with Dunkey

Look, this article doesn’t reflect what I believe anymore. It was written in an evening more as a compilation of talking points for a conversation I was having with my roommate, and then blew up afterwards when he posted it to the official Dunkey subreddit.

There’s a YouTuber named Dunkey who’s quite popular, with 3.4 million subscribers and millions of views within days of each new video. He’s famous in the video game community for his brutal takedowns of bad games and his genuine adoration for others. However there’s a thread through his content over the years that anyone who’s tried to honestly critique the video game community can clearly recognize as typical “Gamer” shittiness. Dunkey uses homophobic, ableist, racist and sexist slurs in his videos. He thinks it’s hilarious to beat and murder women in his videos and often screams sexist pejoratives while doing so. As of this writing, he’s never apologized for any of it and continues to make money off it.

Anyone who supports Dunkey needs to know that they’re supporting a man who’s said such horrible things as “big tits bimbo” in reference to Elizabeth from BioShock Infinite and told Dora the Explorer to “suck my dick” (which is in fact paedophilia). Let’s break down everything wrong with Dunkey into categories:

Violence Against Women

Dunkey has repeatedly released videos in which he finds it hilarious to beat and murder female characters in the games he plays. Dunkey reinforces the dangerous misconception that women are less than human, that they’re objects existing for the enjoyment of men. Here’s just a sample:

It’s like a montage of how many different ways you can be a sexist piece of shit on YouTube, but there’s more.

Racism

Dunkey is white. So it’s pretty unbelievable when in his rap video for Red Dead Redemption he repeatedly uses the n-word and other racist slurs (Source). In a karaoke section of one video game, Dunkey purposefully mocks the Japanese song, singing gibberish (Source). In another video for Sleeping Dogs, a video game set in Hong Kong, Dunkey walks up to some Asian women in a market and flatly states, “All you Asian people look the same to me” (Source).

Blatant Misogyny

Dunkey almost exclusively calls women “B*tch” in his videos, often times before or after abusing or murdering them which he believes to be funny. But there’s nothing funny about what he’s doing. He does it so often I gave up trying to sort through it all and resigned to the fact it’s an integral part of his content. Take a listen:

Raps “b*tches leaving chores cause they think they got an ass, I’ll escort these hoes out and say I’m taking out the trash “ (Source)

Calls woman “vile, dirt, filth wh*re… all used up and disgusting“ (Source)

On a select your gender screen he picked male and said “Select your difficulty? I pick hard” insinuating being a woman is easier (Source)

He also used a sexualized woman in a thumbnail, using a gay slur because of course he did:

This feeds into the next issue with Dunkey’s content.

Homophobia

Dunkey has also used gay slurs in his content. In a video for the N64 game Glover Dunkey refers to one of the enemies as a “f*ggot” (Source). In another video for Max Payne 3, Dunkey was commenting on the game’s music, stating it’s “so awesome that you could just be doing the gayest shit” and then plays the game music over video of him cracking an egg (Source). He’s insinuating that cooking is a gay thing I guess? The point is that he has no problem using homophobic slurs and demonstrates a complete disregard and disdain for LGBT folks. In another video for the multiplayer game Blackwater, he includes one of his friends saying “It’s not gay if you’re at sea for several days” confirming that not only is Dunkey homophobic but so are his friends (Source).

Ableism

Dunkey is also no stranger to using slurs against those with learning disabilities. He uses the word “retarded” as a pejorative here, here, here and here. I found counts of Dunkey’s disregard and insults for those with learning disabilities from 2012 to a couple months ago. He really sees no issue with what he’s doing.

Getting Banned from League of Legends

In 2015 Dunkey was banned from League of Legends for saying:

He goes on to say in his video that “I can understand being banned for cheating or going afk or feeding on purpose but talking shit to some guy that is a total dumbass? What is this? Fucking pussy-ass baby preschool time?” (Source). This clearly indicates Dunkey has no understanding of how words can affect people and how utterly oblivious he is to the notion of other player’s feelings. It’s clear to the viewer that this whole whiny video is just a result of Dunkey’s feelings being hurt and instead of reflecting on what behaviour led to his situation he chooses to blame Riot Games for failing to appreciate him. He believes he is more important than the other players and exceptions should be made for him because he’s a YouTuber.

The whole video is essentially Dunkey throwing a tantrum, it’s disgusting and embarrassing. With this perspective, it’s no wonder that Dunkey can say such horrendous things about women and minorities without any guilt or regard for how his words might affect them. He is a callous, conceited man whose arrogance really is what’s making the video game community such a toxic, uninviting place.

Transphobia

Dunkey has made transphobic remarks more than once over the years. He referred to Elizabeth from BioShock Infinite as “Urkel with tits” (Source) purposefully misgendering her. In another video, Dunkey refers to Nicki Minaj as Jay Z’s husband “Nick Garage” also purposefully misgendering her (Source). Dunkey believes that misgendering women is some hilarious insult when in fact it’s grossly transphobic.

The Team Siren Mockery

One of Dunkey’s most famous videos is one in which he mocks the first all-female League of Legends team, named Team Siren. He falsely paints them as man-hating, unintelligible whiny girls, which if you watch the original video couldn’t be farther from the truth. What Team Siren was trying to do with their formation and their announcement video was show the world that there’s room in the eSports scene for women to compete. And yeah it used dubstep and some flashy transitions but that’s just eSports, you can’t single out Team Siren for these things.

But Dunkey couldn’t let that be and he thought it’d be best to create another video mocking them which he titled “Dead Serious Girl Gamers” because of course he fucking did how dare women try to get into games. He broke down each aspect of the trailer with his own voice over, imitating each woman in a mocking, whiny voice and teasing them. It’s frustrating to watch considering how discouraging it already is for many women to get into games without shitheads like Dunkey treating tearing them down just for doing so.

The “Guide to Girls”

One of the most egregious videos Dunkey has made, and one of the ones that launched his career, is a video entitled “League of Legends : Guide to Girls” Dunkey states that about 95% of his viewers are male, so he’s going to tell them how to pick up girls in League. But before that he goes through some comments from viewers saying they’re women, calling one a “stuck-up b*tch” (Source). He then proceeds to tell the presumed male viewer that you need to identify which people in your lobby are playing as female heroes, those are your most likely “targets.” He says you should make sure you let those heroes kill you because “girls like it when you let them win” (Source), implying that female players can’t play on male player’s level.

He then proceeds to say “but you also have to show them that you don’t take shit from them, from that stupid b*tch that I’m the man in this relationship!” (Source). He then goes around targeting all the female heroes, claiming he’s “sending them to hell” and that no one else can kill them screaming “she’s mine! That’s my woman!” (Source).

He released a follow-up video called “Guide to Girls 2” in which he claims “I’ve become the forthright authority on League of Legends women” and that he’s talked to “all 150 girls in League” during which he flashes up a card with “Actual (boobs + vagina)” written on it (Source). This only further illustrates Dunkey’s sexism and transphobia, reducing them to their sex appeal and genitalia. He refers to the women who play League of Legends as “stupid bimbos” and for the rest of the video he goes on about the different types of “b*tches” you’ll encounter and how to course them.

Don’t Support Him

I want to close out by just saying that supporting Dunkey is supporting sexism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, racism, ableism and a toxic gaming community. Dunkey represents much of what’s wrong with the video game community and why it’s so shitty and abusive towards anyone who is not a straight, white male. While people will try to defend him, saying he doesn’t demonstrate these beliefs in every single video, it shouldn’t matter because the fact he demonstrates these beliefs at all is reason enough to end your support. And some may even say that just because he makes these “jokes” doesn’t mean he believes them, which a) if he’s making the jokes he believes they’re funny and b) when you have an audience of millions it doesn’t matter if you believe it because you are normalizing that kind of behaviour.

If you look at the patterns of behaviour over the years it’s impossible to deny this is a really shitty guy. He rose to fame off of sexist content, and while he may not murder a woman in every video he carries all of that misogyny with him in all his work. If you read through all of this and are still okay with supporting him then you’re just as bad as he is. I implore anyone still reading to look for new artists to support who don’t use their platform to say and do such horrible things to already victimized and vulnerable people.

155 comments on “Everything Wrong with Dunkey”

This is one of the most ignorant, pretentious, and unequivocally brain dead articles I think I have ever-read in my life. Jokes have to be at the expense of something in order to to be classified as comedy. Even the most liberal, progressive, and forward thinking people would firmly disagree about your positioning on Gastrow. Ur dense.

Hey thanks for reading 🙂 I disagree with your definition of comedy, anything that makes people laugh or amuse someone can be comedic, it doesn’t have to be at the expense of something. And I’m the same density as every other human being: 985 kg/m³. See? Classic comedy.

It’s depressing that your motive is actually to make everyone feel safe and okay, and yet you’re just so irreparably naive that you actually will attack people for jokes. Jokes. It’s hard to hate you as much as I hate people who make a similarly detrimental impact on the world with idiocy, though. You do, somewhere in there, beyond all of this pain you and those similar inflict on the world, want the best for people.

Have you ever taken into consideration that this blatant extremism is actually starting to become a form of discrimination of its own? Nobody feels safe anymore because of this abhorrent ideology you people sling about, high above your heads.

You know how fucking retarded you are? You libtard scum shitface “ dunkey has no idea of how his words effect on people” omg you’re a pussy words are something that comes outta someone’s mouth, grow sum nuts lose the vagina you’re a man. you fucked with wrong fan base dumbas

This article is ridiculously stupid. Like Dunkey isn’t trying to offend anyone, you are just a salty baby. So what if he kills a woman in a video game (its a video game, not real) and everything “offensive” he says is said in a comedic way not a hateful way.

Most of the time it’s not in a hateful way, although his “Girl Gamers” video might be. But it doesn’t matter if it’s hateful when he makes it, what matters is that his content reinforces stereotypes and tropes that hurt people already being pushed out of games by the toxic community.

Dude, i’m not trying to be a dick or anything. I don’t have anything againt you or anything.

But goddamn, aren’t you able to see that dunkey does this to purposelly trigger people like you?

He embodies everything thats bad about the community ON PURPOSE, he is making fun of how ignorant, sexist , and an overall dick he is. Every single slur, every single insult or ignorant comment he does is written and premeditated for comedic purposes.

Comedy needs to be at expenses of somebody, it’s the very definition of comedy itself (Comedy=Tragedy + Time)
In this case Dunkey makes fun both of himself as a character, and of people like you that rage at him.

He created a character, and you fell for it. Congrats, you became the classic Tumblr sterotype everyone laughs at on the internet.

thanks for reaeding John! If you’ll read the referenced article at the top in the update this article doesn’t entirely reflect how I feel anymore.

Per your points, if Duneky is trying to satirize toxic gaming culture (which I can’t find confirmation anywhere he is, but if you have any I’d love to see it) then he’s doing it pretty badly. Anyone stumbling onto him on YouTube could take him seriously, if satire is indistinguishable from the source material you haven’t made satire you’ve just made more of the source material.

Holy shit, this retard must actually be autistic. The vids he pointed out are some of the most blatant parody I’ve ever seen, but “dunkey said a naughty word and that hurts my precious little feel-feels”. I hope this dude dies of an estrogen overdose; by the sound of it his levels are already dangerously high

You know, I don’t actually enjoy Dunkey’s more offensive videos (most of the ones listed, for the listed reasons), but I also think this article is sorely lacking in context.

You list many times when Dunkey has gone to the extreme with his comedy and use it to say that he is sexist/ableist/homophobic, while seemingly both ignoring all the times he does it towards other groups and missing some of the satire/comedy. I’ll list a few examples of what I mean:

1. In one of your examples (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pu6ixyJ_Y-0&feature=youtu.be&t=2m33s), you show how he just randomly kills a woman and this is used as proof that he’s sexist. Do I find this funny? No. But is it sexist? Not really. Not only does he do this frequently to male characters, he does it in this same video (at the 2 minute mark) where he murders two random guys.

2. Another is when you showcase him getting his male Sim to beat up other female Sims (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTAoTeUpKnI&feature=youtu.be&t=4m1s). However elsewhere in this video he burns a male Sim to death – it’s not so much that these types of videos are horrible/sexist towards women, they’re just horrible towards everyone (often to an absurd extent).

3. As an example of missing the joke, you say that him saying “all you Asian people look the same to me” is racist, but it’s a joke based on how they’re all using the same character model and literally look the same.

4. And a final example, the Grand Theft Auto video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-5uEbrQR3s&feature=youtu.be&t=53s), where he goes into a nightclub, watches the strippers, and then murders everyone inside. Again I don’t really like this type of content, but pointing this out as an example of misogyny is disingenuous to me, as Dunkey precedes this clip with murdering a bunch of men, and then afterwards murders a bunch more men.

To conclude, I think that if many of the things you take issue with had happened to men you wouldn’t have any issues with them.

Hey thanks for reading! If you check out the link I’ve updated at the top of this post it doesn’t really represent my views anymore, but thank you for taking the time to read and leave such comprehensive feedback.

Bro it’s funny as shit and if you think he’s really sexist and shit and not kidding you probably grew up with 2 gay Dads that teach philosophy and I fucking hate you you gay slut whore big tits bimbo he’s fucking joking you ass also if you are joking then
1) disregard everything I just said
2)this is pretty convincing and actually annoying because it just pisses me off cuz I think you are serious

Hey bro, I my parents aren’t gay but my mom has taught philosophy so that might’ve contributed to my desire to look at content I enjoy beyond a superficial layer and try to ciritque and analyze it. You should give it a try sometime!

This is the only example of virtue signalling I’ve ever found that legitimately upset me, and I want to tell you why.
I discovered dunkey while I was recovering from surgery, and his videos really helped me.
For me, the funniest thing about dunkey is the exaggerated emotion. The way he has a complete meltdown when he loses, and is filled with absolute euphoria when he wins.
It’s pure camp, and really helped see the absurdity of my situation (crippled and filled with impotent rage) in a more humorous light.
For you to take something that helped me survive the darkest moment of my life and reduce it to clickbaity point scoring is just disgusting. You can hide behind “I don’t feel that way now tho”, but the damage is done.
Next time you wanna speak truth to power, try going after someone with actual power

hey thanks for reading 🙂 I’m glad Dunkey was able to help you through a dark time in your life. I’d caution that just because you’re emotionally connected to someone doesn’t mean they’re irreproachable and shouldn’t be criticized.

Also you’re a little naive if you don’t think a cultural icon with over 5.3 million followers doesn’t have any power…

Hey Stephan, I just wanted you to know that I don’t think you should kill yourself, and I think you make some valid points in both this article and your more recent update. I’ve watched a lot of Dunkey’s videos and I’ve personally found quite a bit of his content really funny, but I’m a garbage human being with a really twisted and fucked up sense of humor so me finding him funny is probably not a great sign. In seriousness, some stuff about his content really doesn’t sit well with me, even though I really do want to like him, and that kinda sucks. Sorry that some people took your article about how gamer culture can normalize abusive language and used it as an excuse to direct a bunch of abusive language at you. Us gamers really are good at being ignorant assholes sometimes. Keep your head up!

Hey Phil, thanks for reading and for your advice ❤️ I wasn’t planning on killing myself anytime soon so it’s good to hear some people agree lol

It is a little ironic that an article about how abusive gamers should rethink their actions resulted in a bunch more gamers being abusive but c’est la vie. I appreciate your comment a lot it makes me hopeful that there’s room for a discussion around these issues. Cheers!